75% of What Exactly?

Matthew Yglesias: 75 Percent Of What catches Condi Rice floundering when asked how many al-Qaeda people are being counted as “leaders” when Bush et. al say they have captured or killed '75 percent of the al-Qaeda known leadership' . Given the vagueness of her answer, which appears due to total ignorance as to either the real facts or how this factoid was concocted, Matt Yglesias concludes “they could mean as few as eight people.”

One Response to 75% of What Exactly?

Rice, of course, is supposed to be the person to make sense of the possibly confusing different takes coming up from different agencies.

How much confidence can we have in an administration where the national security adviser does not know within AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE* what impact we are having in our “war” against an enemy which attacked us, an attack which, by the way, CHANGED EVERYTHING.

* [how many killed or captured?] — “I would suspect that that’s in the tens to hundreds”